How did you hear the Gospel for the first time? Was it your parents? Was it Sunday school when you were a child – like our sweet Eleanor West – our shut in, who was taken to church by someone at 10 years old and she accepted Christ after hearing about God’s love in Christ for her. Did you hear it in a church sermon? Were you handed a tract somewhere? Did you hear a sermon on the radio or online? Did a stranger come up to you somewhere and tell you? Did a co-worker or a friend not give up on you? Did your spouse get saved first and the Lord finally brought you to Himself – answering the desperate prayers of your spouse? How did you hear the Gospel for the first time?
Do you realize that it was God’s plan for you to hear it? Does it strike you how personal God is with you that His eye was on you, His love was for you, and He planned a move (or moves) in your life to bring the Gospel of His Son in front of you in some way? Think of how personal that is.
God was moving personally in the lives of each one of the Galatians too when He brought the Apostle Paul into their towns. The focus for us today comes from verse 13, and it is the Providence of God. Follow along in verse 13, “As you know it was because of an illness that I first preached the Gospel to you.”
Let none of us think that his illness was an accident, and that the Galatians hearing the Gospel because of it were somehow not in the plans. It may not have been in Paul’s plans, but the point I want to make here is it was in God’s plans. And here we are coming to the doctrine of God’s Providence. God is not only in control of all things, but He is controlling all things. He is controlling all things for His ultimate purposes. All things are a piece of the greater whole God is making. People will often talk about God’s Sovereignty, which is related but different from His providence. Theologians explain Sovereignty as God’s power and right to rule the universe and all events. He is the Sovereign and He is sovereign. But His providence is His action and involvement in the universe to make things happen so that His ultimate purposes are fulfilled. Some describe it as “His sovereignty in action.” (Piper). We see God’s providence all throughout the bible:
- For instance, think of Esther, and those famous words, “And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” There you can see the implication of God’s providence, that Esther was strategically placed in the middle of that historical moment by God’s hand. He had placed her there.
- Or think of the great king Nebuchadnezzar being humbled by God, when in Daniel 4 God said to him, “Your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like the ox. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them [PROVIDENCE] to anyone He wishes.”
- Or think of the Israelites at the Red Sea and God drowning the Egyptians. God led them to the Red Sea, knowing they would be trapped. But being trapped was God’s providential plan because He was going to use that situation to do something miraculous, demonstrate His power and glory to the Israelites, and destroy Pharaoh and his entire army.
- Or think of the Israelites not fully killing all the Canaanites in the land like they were supposed to. God knew they wouldn’t, and used their disobedience to accomplish other purposes, “I will use the remaining nations to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD.” The LORD allowed those nations to remain and did not drive them all out at once and give them into Joshua’s hand.” Then it says, “These are the nations the LORD left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendents of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience.)” (Judg 2:21-3:2)
- One of the most famous examples, and famous words in the Bible, come from the lips of Joseph, when he told his brothers who had betrayed him, “What you meant for evil God used for good, for the saving of many lives.” In other words, Joseph’s long journey from a nobody in Canaan to becoming the ruler of Egypt and saving many people started with a very evil act against him by his brothers. God in His providence used that situation to move Joseph ultimately into that powerful position for that purpose.
- Or think of the very death of Jesus, Peter explains the providential hand of God even in the evil decision to kill Him, “Jesus was handed over to you BY GOD’S DELIBERATE PLAN and FOREKNOWLEDGE; and you with the help of wicked men put him to death by nailing Him to the cross.” The evil to kill Jesus was in their hearts, God in His providence gave Jesus over to them so they could accomplish that evil. But that was an evil act He was using for a greater purpose of good – our salvation!
These are all examples of how God acts in the affairs of this world to bring about His plans. He uses the decisions of men and the plans of nations; He uses nobody’s and great rulers; He uses the weather and natural events; He uses the good and evil happening; the love and hatred people have; war and peace; life and death. There is nothing happening under the sun that does not happen by God’s direct decision or permission, because He is sovereign over all creation and all the going-ons of creation, and in His providence He is moving so that all of history and all of creation fulfills His ultimate plans.
And we see God’s providence in Galatia. A sick Apostle arrived in their town. When we read the history in Acts 13 and 14 we don’t see any mention of Paul being sick when he arrived in Galatia. But its very common that in Scripture all the details are not crammed into every account of a situation. We often fill in our understanding of situations with more details from other parts of Scripture. And here Paul says that when he preached the gospel to them it was because he got sick and had to be taken care of by them.
Think about this: Paul did not say, “In my missionary journey itinerary I had you guys on my list after the island of Cyprus.” In other words, Paul did not tell them he was planning on going to them. He tells them he got sick and that’s why he landed on their doorstep. The implication being that it was not in his plans to go to them.
And here is where we say, “It wasn’t Paul’s plan, but it was God’s.” God used Paul’s sickness to get him to the Galatians. Think about that! God didn’t give him a revelation like Peter got about Cornelius (Acts 10). God didn’t give Paul “a word from the Lord,” or a vision. There was no “handwriting on the wall” (Daniel 5). There was no angel pointing the way, no voice from heaven. There was nothing supernatural at all like that. It was God orchestrating the natural events to get the results He wanted. And what were those results? The Galatians would hear the Gospel!
Now lets talk a moment about Paul getting sick. This is one of – if not THE greatest – Apostles. I want to say two things:
First, we don’t know what his sickness was. Some say it was related to his eyes because he says in verse 15, “I know you would’ve torn out your eyes and given to me if you could have.” But that could easily just be an expression. We don’t know what it was. But somehow he got sick, and it was pretty bad because he points out how the Galatians did not treat him with contempt or scorn for being sick, which implies how bad his sickness was. Which leads to the second thing I want to say about Paul getting sick…
Second – Paul got sick. Believers get sick. Even Apostles. The notion that believers should NOT get sick has no basis in Scripture. When people say “by His stripes we are healed,” or there’s “healing in the atonement,” they are proving their bad theology and mishandling of Scripture. Paul got sick; Timothy had stomach issues and was chronically ill (1 Tim 5:23); Epaphroditus – that beloved Philippian Christian – nearly died from an illness (Php 2:27); Trophimus, one of Paul’s dedicated ministry companions, got very sick (2 Tim 4:20). These were all-star Christians who are going to be among the most rewarded by Jesus Christ and they were getting sick.
APPLICATION: Don’t fall for the Charismatic error that believers are *not supposed to* get sick. The bible says these bodies are weak, mortal, and corrupted. They are going to be set aside in death so that our new glorious bodies will be taken up at the resurrection. Those resurrection bodies are the ones that will be free from sin, from death, and disease. Lets not make the error that these fallen bodies we inhabit right now are somehow supposed to be free from the effects of the Fall.
APPLICATION: God in His providence uses circumstances of our lives to move us according to His purposes. Those can be the family you are born into, the person you marry, the opportunities you have, and so on. But God’s providence also means that He can and does use very difficult and very unpleasant things in life:
- Sickness (as we see here in Galatians 4)
- Closed doors and lost opportunities (Acts 16:1-4)
- Situational limitations (2 Timothy 2:9)
- Personal limitations (1 Corinthians 1:26-29; Mark 10:27)
- Persecution (Philippians 1:12-14)
- Evil (Genesis 50:20)
God’s providence means He is at work in this world, and He is using everything in this world to keep it all on track for His purposes. God’s providence also means that He is at work in our lives, and He is using everything in our lives to further His purposes.
APPLICATION: Make plans, and in your plans, plan for God to do things you didn’t plan on. In other words, make your plans and keep in mind that God may fulfill your plans or He may have other plans in mind.
APPLICATION: It takes faith. It takes faith to believe in God’s providence. It takes faith to accept the good and the bad, and that God is good in it all. It takes faith to submit to God when His plans were not in my plans.
APPLICATION: Carefully make decisions in life, but do not become paralyzed and indecisive. Pray (and fast even), take some time, talk with wise people, seek the Scriptures, explore all options and all potential outcomes. Do all that, and consciously dedicate yourself and your plans to the Lord and leave it in His hands.
APPLICATION: Make your outlook such that no matter where you are, and no matter what your circumstances, that it is of God so that you can shine the light of Christ. Paul’s sickness was God’s design to get him in front of the Galatians so that he could preach the Gospel. God said of Paul when he first became a Christian in Acts 9, “This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles…I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” Paul saw every situation as somehow from God – and he saw his purpose in every situation was to proclaim Christ’s name.